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Sat 14 Oct, 2017 03:15 pm
Any further elections without X boxes on paper ballots and voter inclusion instead of suppression, is illegitimate.
Robert Reich
11 mins ·
States across the country have developed a new voter suppression tactic -- thousands of Americans are being denied the right to vote because they're poor. In 9 states, Republican legislators have enacted laws that disenfranchise anyone with outstanding legal fees or court fines. For example, in Alabama as many as 100,000 people who owe money -- or 3 percent of the state’s voting-age population -- have been disenfranchised.
In 1964, the 24th amendment abolished the poll tax, a Jim Crow tactic used to bar poor blacks from voting. These new laws are a modern reincarnation of that unconstitutional system, disproportionately disenfranchising people of color.
Wealth should have no bearing on the right to vote, especially at a time of widening income inequality. These laws create a society in which the poor have increasingly less say and further empower the rich to make decisions that benefit the few.